Week 10: Enterprise apps to watch

Mavenlink, Fuze, and MS Bot Framework

Mavenlink (mavenlink.com)

What is it? Project management software with a big focus on resource management, both human and financial.
Who uses it? Started by a group of former Accenture consultants, there is a big focus on large enterprise client consulting base.
Why is it better? Imagine a web based version of MS project that is 100x better, available on all devices and is visually appealing.

Fuze (fuze.com)

What is it? Formerly ThinkingPhones, this is the first very serious competitor to Slack’s current dominance on instant communication, but adds a fully integrated suite of communication tools. Think Slack + RingCentral + Quip.
Who uses it? Zenefits, Groupon, Thumbtack and GM. Just raised $112M to expand sales.
Why is it better? A fully integrate Slack competitor is massively compelling for any size business. As communication moves to a multi-channel experience across a digital spectrum we’ll see more and more business have all communications, including voice, video, chat and email wholly integrated.

Microsoft Bot Framework (dev.botframework.com/)

What is it? Hell is certainly freezing over with all of the open source announcements from MS Build2016. MS has now built a framework to help developers create bots for Slack, Skype, Office365 and more.
Who uses it? Still in beta, but I can imagine this taking off with big enterprise.
Why is it better? Bots and AI are rapidly becoming a new form of human-computer interactivity.